“The first 10 licenses were super super cheap, and then every 10 after that went up. So there was a little bit of FOMO for those early adopters. Pretty quickly it sold out.”

Tier the pre-sale price ladder — first 10 cheapest, each batch goes up

A 50-license pre-sale used a stepped price ladder where the first 10 seats were cheapest and each subsequent batch of 10 cost more. The escalating curve manufactured scarcity-driven FOMO and sold out in 2-3 days, generating $20K before any code shipped.